Andy brown
Well-known member
I sincerely hope our Parisian OPFers are safe tonight. I can only think of Nicolas at the moment, I'm sure there are others.
Terrible events!
Terrible events!
Europe is and will be, in trouble... we are in presence of a change.
And it is a big one ! It will take some two or more generations perhaps but changes are on the way.
No change at all, just the tide coming in... Asher
I would call it a tsunami !
Hello AndyI sincerely hope our Parisian OPFers are safe tonight. I can only think of Nicolas at the moment, I'm sure there are others.
Terrible events!
Hello Andy
thank you to feel concerned but I live more than 500 km from Paris and am therefore not in danger (yet!).
It does not surprise me that in Europe mainly Britain and France suffer these attacks ...
I do not agree with Asher on the fact that only force on the ground is the only solution, the US (with English, French and some other troops) did that in Iraq and Afghanistan with the disaster that we know ... The air bombing of the coalition (mainly the USA, England and France, leaving aside for the moment the attitude of Russia and Turkey).
These coordinated responses with Kurdish troops have made great successes in Sinjar yesterday and Kobané sme months before...
It is avery complicated situation in Syria, there are so many different groups, armies, interests…
Who really knows how to get rid of this?
Unless the West officially recognizes the Islamic State as a sovereign power and stops bombing them, these attacks will continue and gather momentum. The alternative, that no one is willing to face is putting an overwhelming and summary force on the ground to annihilate them. So the natural consequence will be more outrageous acts and more powerless outrage!
The only answer is either full recognition, (which is only slightly likely to work), or boots on the ground to encircle and obliterate them with huge casualties.
Let me first point out that there are 100 of millions of practicing muslims who are against terrorism and are probably as shocked by these attacks as you are. It is not a problem of a specific religion, it is a problem of fanaticism and fanaticism happened in probably all major religions in past history.
Let me also point out that my firm belief is that human societies should respect the right to practice all religions equally. France, as you undoubtedly know, is a secular state but recognise the right to practice religious activities. Religion is private matter, but protected. The situation is not perfect, nothing is, but workable.
As to the so-called "Islamic State" or "Caliphate", it would be exactly the opposite: a state based on religious observance. There is nothing that the World needs less than that today, for any religion.
Yes I do agree that human societies should respect the right to to practice religion equally without infringing on the rights of others. However I don't see religious beliefs being the source of the current circumstances of chaos and terrorism. Nothing will ever get resolved when people blame each other it is only when people except resonsisibily for their actions and work with each other for common ground. I see the source of this trouble as being the direct result of a decade and a half of poor U. S foreign policy. This started with the war in Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Many countries jumped on this band wagon although we Canadians did not support this war under our Liberal leader Prime Minister John Chrétien Our last Prime Minister Harper under the Conservatives was another story but now we have a new Leberal leader Justin Trudeau and I hope he is not an ass kisser to the Americans.
So after ten years of trying to piece Iraq back together and after thousands of solderiers dead and many more Iraqis dead and truck loads of money spent the U. S moved on.
What started out under the Bush administration was continued under Obama who went on to create change in Libya through the killing of Muammar Gaddafi. The result being more chaos and opened the door to Europe for refugees.
I could go on but we are now reaping the consequences of bad foreign policy for the last 15 years. There are more terrorist groups that are bigger and better equipped than when this war on terrorism started.
Let me start by stating that I believe that humans are inherently good and inquisitive to strangers and considerate.
If for the last 50 years we had conditioned trade, banking system, sports and other engagement on program of human rights, then we be in this predicament. We tolerate regimes teach that others are inferior or like vermin!
That and lack of employment opportunity is the root cause of ISIS.
As dictatorships always implode, as seen in the so-called "Arab Spring" they do not need an "American Intervention" to become so radicalized. In Egypt, for example, the people turned against Coptic Christians overnight when the "brotherhood" swept in to power. That was no the result of American actions, just the fact that generations had been raised with severe prejudice!
In the second world war, it was not German intervention solely caused the rounding up of Jews in Hungary and in Latvia for slave labor or disposal. The locals did it on their own! ...........all based on how they were taught values in their normal education for generations! It's convenient to blame the Germans then or the Americans now, but not really valid! Opening the gate of a cattle pen does not make cows into raging bulls!
....and as to War, the Canadians might consider contributing to fight with France to neutralize the bands murdering in Iraq and Syria. Sympathy is heart warming but not any contribution to the current fire raging,. . We need both intervention on the ground and the equivalent of a long term Marshall plan to rebuild these countries. Canada is not insulted. Canadians can, if they so choose wait until they are certain that they are also direct targets for attacks as in Paris. But we would be disappointed if we were left to shoulder all the responsibility for putting out this fire. After all, what's the meaning of having allies if France's tragedy is not something that makes us join their battle.
One cannot simply ignore ISIS. If we leave them to their own devices, they will spread and Europe itself will be the springboard for coming to the North American continent too. not today or tomorrow, but it will come. I simply cannot think it's fair for Canada to benefit from trade and not consider that any attack on Paris is an attack on Canadian citizens in Montreal and and Ottawa!
Today one could say, in homage to Martin Niemöller, (1892-1984),
When they came for kids in a Tel-Aviv Café, we didn't protest, as we Are not Jews
When they bomb the Kurds daily, we do not protest, as we are not Kurds,
When they persecute Gypsies in Europe, we do not protest as we are not Gypsies,
When they Massacre Yazdis in Syria, we did not protest, as we didn't even know they existed!
When they massacred the Christians in Darfur, we were busy,
When they slaughtered Parisians we sent our sympathy ......but no muscle,
So when they finally come to Montreal, who will we call?
Asher
I realize we can't ignore ISIS but where did they get 6 billion dollars worth of military equipment?
If you ask: "where did they buy the equipment?", the answer is "from the usual sellers". It is quite easy to find a list of countries exporting weapons (France is #4).
If you ask: "where did they get the money?", I'll answer: "how much did you pay for gas lately?".
I was sarcastically referring to the 6 billon dollars worth of military equipment that they got from the U.S. military . Hmmm what kind of policy is that? This really does make me wonder.
........that the Iraqi army simply abandoned to the advancing ISIS fighters! The U.S.
Asher
Yes but why was the original Iraqi army let go with there bags packing and where are they now? It was a bad choice to invade Iraq in the first place.
Yes but why was the original Iraqi army let go with there bags packing and where are they now? It was a bad choice to invade Iraq in the first place.
I presume you mean Saddam Hussein Baathist led army, or do you refer to the Shia dominated current Iraqi army, stripped of Baathist and strong Sunni influence?
Asher
Yeah Saddam"s military the same ones that were fired and left without jobs by U.S policy. This is your ISIS is it not?
Not quite, and there is ample scientific evidence to that, but a photo forum is probably not the place to discuss it. Let just say that I find Voltaire more suitable than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
As to the rest: you are discussing ISIS, an interesting state-like creation between Syria, Irak and Turkey. You should not. To my knowing, all the people involved in these attack where French and lived in France. True: they were influenced by a fanatic nebula somewhat related to ISIS. But they are French.
Therefore, the real question is: "how do you convince a Frenchman to wear a belt laden with dynamite, take an AK-47 in his hands and let him loose in a football stadium or concert hall?". There is a specific way to do that and it involves taking from that person all hopes for a decent life and, at the same time, convincing him that a decent life is something only the 1% can afford. That is the crux of the problem.
Interested readers may want to draw parallels with their own countries.
Well, not quite. A lot of these fighters are actually from Chechnya and other restive territories. This is an opportunistic movement that acts as a magnet for an international movement aimed at reviving the dream of a Caliphate that will only refer to the strictest Sharia law. Amongst the fighters you might find disgruntled Baathists or Sunni tribal US-recruited and trained fighters that were immediately abandoned and disbanded after the US left. The Shia leaning government simply fired them all.
ISI, amongst others fighting against Assad, were supported directly and indirectly from wealth in the Gulf states and laundered money from Europe and around the world. Once they capture oilfields and banks, they had currency and wealth to pay their swelling ranks. As they became wealthier, they had less needs for connection with Afghani or other command centers of Al Queda. Essentially, they are now self-financing.
Many of the Baathists in Saddam's army were not at all devout although they were muslim but have families and tribal connections so many do not need to fight in any war. However, ISIS is attractive for those humiliated by any number of governments or inspired by internet chats rooms or videos of ISIS success against infidels. If one is growing up in London and subject to racism, isolation and epithets all one's life, the advances of the ISIS forces and the creation of a society where Islam is the center of life is attractive. This is especially true of young men who are under the strict thumb of their "old fashioned" parents and cannot date girls as their classmates do. All this adds up to a feeling of being foreign and longing for being respected as a strong man. So after following the chat rooms, eventually inquisitiveness leads to meetings with like minded young people and then some "connection" to map out how to get to Turkey or Jordan and make one's way to the fighting zones.
It's not simply that Saddam's soldiers became ISIA, just that they found enough expertise from them in strategy and handling more advanced weapons and that's all they needed together with a driving passion to exalt over infidels and usher in the dawn of another rich period in Muslim history where the begging and end of everything is found in the koran.
A friend of mine in Pakistan told me that he was walking around town and came across a boy about 9 or ten years old who was just stopped by the local Imam. The latter quizzed the lad about what he was doing with his days. When the boy answered that he was studying mathematics, science and English he was swiftly chided that, "These are the studies of the devilish Jews, you need to just study the holy Koran!? My friend, a devout Muslim who heeds the call to prayer and who's wife is modestly covered always, was taken back. but he didn't challenged the preacher. "Why?" I asked. Well, my friend replied, he would have simply dismissed my remarks as coming from a man who has shaved his beard and was thus not pious and of no consequence.
So imagine, if we think that this particular Imam was trained decades ago by a system that trained a thousand other like-minded preachers. Now you can see how folk who hate are created from good children.
Asher
Home grown terrisom is nothing new but it is important to differentiate between radical religious beliefs,home grown terrisom, bad political policies and the tendency to jump to conclusions about how to deal with these types of attacts before people decide to put boots on the ground in a foreign country when it would be difficult to identify the enemy. So far the war on terrisom is not working.
War against terrorists is hard, but war against a fielded army is pretty straightforward. ISIS has command and control, vehicles and headquarters as well as convoys and masses or groups of fighters occupying villages or cities where the locals are willing to point them out to a rescuing expeditionary force.
As long as the receiving Western army manage to find zero terrorist prisoners alive to round up, they can defeat the enemy! There'll be none to return to Europe! OTOH, in previous years, trying to identify Shiite terrorists in their own villages was near impossible. The same with identifying Hamas fighters in Gaza "Mau Mau" in Kenya over 50 years ago!
But in the case of ISIS, they mostly occupy land that they are not
native to and they have treated the locals with contempt and terror.
ISIS has terrorized populations it took over and so they will be pointed out to any invading army who comes with strength , food, rebuilding and enough funds to get their lives back!
An air campaign cannot do that as ISIS fighters can retreat and then return. In a military sanitation of the area, the occupying terrorists would be shot as they resisted the oncoming forces and that solves the problem. This would be a shoot to kill campaign or it would have no practical advantage. Chasing them elsewhere serves no purposes and in fact worsens the situation. Essentially anyone trained for terrorist activity has to be segregated and those that fight killed.
Totally doable! Remember, in the Desert storm campaign and in the Israeli-Egyptian Sinai war, defeated armies were simply allowed to escape. However, against an ideologically committed force, if they are engaged, the only reasonable outcome is their liquidation as such folk on not likely to be rehabilitated by any known persuasive argument.
There's no possible approach to stopping a determined, idealogcally-bound, fanatic and well-financed insurgency except by boots on the ground. wishing to be reasonable and restrained simply kicks the can down the road. I do not expect Canada to take any lead in such a war unless a flock of squealing pigs flies over my building at the same time!
There's another approach and that is simply conceding territory to them, paying them homage and recognizing their government. It's called appeasement, but in a practical sense, if ISIS would accept it, it is likely to be a temporary tactical decision and not a strategic policy change in their quest for hegemony.
Asher
Obama wants even more Syrian refugees coming to America because he knows it will insure Democratic vote.
Don
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...usa-idUSKCN0SV2SE20151106#XDiPeHV6FlfRPI6G.97